Greedy Goblin

Friday, March 13, 2009

Challenging Tobold

Tobold wrote that "anyone can make the pitiful amount of 2k gold per hour, which obviously isn't true. Gevlon is making money by what is called arbitration, and the profits of that depend on how many people do it. The more good businessmen are on a server, the less the amount of money you can make simply by using the auction house."

He wrote once that he tried the glyph business but it was not rewarding. He claims that this is because of "more good businessmen", so external factors that you cannot help. Of course I don't believe in unbeatable external factors. So my next experiment will be getting rich on the server of Tobold.

Too bad that I don't know which server it is. Tobold keeps it secret because"My blog is my personal diary, so when things like guild drama happen, I blog about them to get them off my soul. And understandably, my guildmates complained about my washing that dirty laundry outside of the private limits of the guild forums. But I didn't want to give up that outlet; I need a place to rant when things go wrong. So the no-names policy is a compromise. I get to complain when I'm not happy, and nobody has to read his name on my blog in connection with that." I can understand it a bit, since nothing offends a social person more than telling the truth about him.

So here is the challenge: if Tobold writes me a mail from his "official" mailbox telling the server name, I create a character there. I won't call him Gevlon and I won't tell his name, so the armory won't reveal Tobold's secret, nor I will mention the name of the server. I will make money on that server, proving that it can be done, posting screenshots. As an evidence that these screenshots are not forgeries, Tobold is always free to come to me and open a trade window and I put all the money in to prove their existance.

2K/hour can be done on his server I'm sure. I reached 1.5 on Maghteridon-EU ally side, a completely dead side.

I never said that I couldn't possibly make 2k gold per hour on my server. I just said that it isn't possible for everyone at once. Yes, the more business men there are on a particular server / side, the lower the profits. No, I don't know how many business men there are on my server, and where exactly the limit of gold-making per hour is on my auction house.

But the main reason why I'm not even trying any more is that I have an epic flying mount on my three level 70-80 characters, and over 30k in the bank. What would I possibly do with more money?

On the particulars of the glyph business, I haven't tried making money with that for some time. It just was too fiddly, too many glyphs to keep track, especially since I didn't use the Gevlon trick of having a dedicated glyph selling toon. But one thing I'm sure about is that you can only make lots of gold with glyphs after spending considerable time and / or gold leveling your inscription skill up, doing the daily research on the recipes, and keeping track of glyph prices. While you proved you could make 1.5k gold per week on Magtheridon, you never showed your total /played time. I sincerely doubt that you took only 4 hours of /played to make 6k. You simply chose not to count all the preparation and traveling time.

The reason why you make so much money on the auction house, and I believe you that you can repeat that on any server you want, is that there are thousands of players less interested in making gold on every server. You call them morons and slackers, I just say they simply don't care whether they are selling things for a quick buck under value, or buying something for a bit more than it is worth. Arbitration works great right now, because everyone has too much gold, and few people really care much about it. But if everyone suddenly needed lots of gold, and everyone would starting to try to make gold on the auction house, the method would break down. The auction house only transfers gold from one character to another. Only looting monsters effectively adds to the amount of money in circulation and is something everyone could do at the same time.

@Tobold: I've never told that I made 2K gold with 1 hour /played. I made it with 1 hour played. There is another 1-2 hour AFK work behind the 2K and I wrote it every time to the reports. Typical AFK times:* flying. I start the flying, ALT-tab to blog or read news, ALT-tab back, and find my character sitting by the destination flypoint* mass production. I press the "create all" button, ALT-Tab, come back 10 mins later* AH scanning

So I legitimately botting, since Blizzard allows unattended flying, crafting and scanning.

Firstly, I've been reading this blog on and off for some time, and while I don't always agree with Gevlon on matters of social politics, when it comes to making money, the man is second to none.

I have taken to the glyphing industry on my server, amongst other things I am now doing, like a fish to water. There are other businessmen glyphing, but I simply sell more, for less. They don't sell, I do, they move on, I don't. Or one or two glyphs don't sell for a while, thats fine too, much like yourself Mr. Tobold, many people don't have the stamina.

What could you possibly do with that money? The next expansion? Make more toons? Make a blog to write about how to make money?

As for the setup time.

Business meant I dropped Skinning/LWing on my main for Inscription/Herbalism. I didn't have any gold to start myself out with (the character being recently un-deleted), so I had to level herblism too for the mats, cos I couldn't afford to buy them off hte AH.

It took me one day of play to get all the mats to level inscription. This is about 6 hours for me. Dont on a Sunday afternoon when I'm not busy.

The levelling process alone made me 2.5K.

With the levelling process done, I could now afford to buy ink, so I dropped Herbalism for Tailoring. I decided to try selling bags. This has been something of a money sink to level, far more than inscription, for far less return. However, I have that levelled now, and according to my math, I've just broken even on levelling.

So yeah, inscription cost me nothing to level, I made 2.5k over the setup, the cost was a couple of gold to level herbalism, and a couple of hours of my time.

In terms of being too faffy. I use Auctioneer batch post.......and Advanced Trade Skill Window.....thats it.

I've actually totally rambled off topic. What I was trying to say was this.

Even using the most time consuming method for setup, which was grinding your own mats for levelling, it still took me only 6 hours play time.

I will admit however that the research cuts into my profits. However, its a very simple equation. I speculate the cost of the mats for the research now, this earns me a new recipe. This new recipe provides me more money later. This is hardly rocket science.

I think I kinda said what I was trying to. I just wish I was a bit more eloquent.

Also, in regards to the link you posted Tobold. I would disagree with this line: -

"While that is only an hour of work…you aren’t doing anything else during that time."

The statement is made stating that the figure of 1.5-2K gold per week is....not realistic because actually you should state that your working that full week to earn the gold. I am however not working that full week.

I currently make somewhere in the region of 1-1.5K per day, I spend about an hour doing this every other day, and maybe a half hour on the inbetween days.

I do not spend all week earning this money, and yes actually, I am doing other things with this time.

As an example. You spend 10 hours doing dailies and farming to get your 3K gold. I spend 2 hours. This is over the same time period. However, I now have 8 hours where I am raiding/at Uni/at the Cinema/PvPing/Drinking with friends/seeing girlfriend etc.

So actually....yes I really am doing something else with that time.

I will admit, that I am very tired, and I may have misunderstood the point in question, but I'm fairly sure I got it right.

*But one thing I'm sure about is that you can only make lots of gold with glyphs after spending considerable time and / or gold leveling your inscription skill up, doing the daily research on the recipes, and keeping track of glyph prices.*

For starters, you really don't need lots of gold nor time to level it. I levelled my inscription to 430 (enough to make all glyphs) in one evening by just buyin stacks of herbs. Didn't cost me more then 2.000 gold. And you can very easily make that kind of gold back in two days of glyph making. Look at it like an investment which won't take a long time to pay off.

Keeping track of glyph prices is as simple as pressing the "scan auctions" each day and go do something else.

Doing the daily researches will give you some unique glyphs you can make. But even without a single rare glyph it's perfectly possible to make gold from inscription. Of course it is easier if you have some rare and very popular glyphs.

It's too bad you don't play in the U.S. Then I could piss you off with some comment, inducing you to come to my server, make 15,000g, and then, er, let me keep it at the end of the challenge :0) Sure, I have everything I need with my current gold, but unlike Tobold, I think I could find stuff to spend it on--like hippogryph mounts for all three characters, more vanity pets, etc.

I think the thing that a lot of people seem to be missing out on here is that Tobold did not say it wasn't possible to make that much gold on his server, merely that it was something that held no interest for him.

I used to run around with less than 1k gold distributed between my 3 toons and never bothered with the 'gold sinks' such as mammoth mounts or boe epics etc, purely because I didn't want to. When I was using the game time I had available to me I didn't want to spend it in an Auction House scanning for money making opportunities. I chose to do other things instead and only kept enough money to keep me in raiding consumables.

Clearly we need a series of Goblin Trials as self proclaimed business across the WoW EU community come together for an Olympic sized event!

1. 100g on a new level one alt. Whoever has the most gold after 2 weeks wins. No limits on what you can do, but your character cannot leave the main city.2. 500g craft off. Each character is given 500g on the same server. You have one week to raise your tailoring skill as high as possible, only working with this initial seed money. You must craft and sell to finance your growth. First to max out the craft or highest after one week wins.3. 1000g efficiency challenge. Each character starts off with 1000g. The winner is the character, who at the end of two weeks has the highest amount of gold per minute played.

For what it's worth, I know that my server (Shadowsong-US) has beaten the market into submission for many of the tricks Gevlon suggests.

Crystals and Eternals never have a price differential greater than 5%. Netherweave Bags cost less than mats. Titansteel Bars cost less than mats. Belt Buckles cost less than mats. Heavy Borean Leather costs less than mats. Bronze Bar costs less than mats. Hell, most everything costs less than mats.

I can still turn a decent profit by buying up Saronite Ore in bulk, prospecting, and selling gems.

Every server is a little different. Glyphs are selling on my server (Kargath-US) for 5-8g and some are even less. Glyphs are not a money maker. As said above, a few of the crafted items also sell for less than the price of mats. I can make some money but not the kind that Gevlon talks about. I don't see how you could, but maybe I am just a slacker.

This is all coming down to semantics, issuing a challenge doesn't prove anything. Tobold doesn't really mean that anyone can't make money on the AH, he means that everyone can't do it. Making money off the AH depends on the fact that a sizable segment of the population won't or can't do the research/data mining to understand the market. People who do put in that effort can make the money that those others decline to make. But if everyone understands the market, all items will be listed for close to their market price, and margins for relisting become solely dependent on microscale fluctuations. The return per time spent becomes so small as to not be worth it.

I'll have to check the AH on my server, and see what the glyphs are going for. I'd like to create a drone on Gelvon's server, and see how the prices compare.

Last time I checked my server, there were far too many folk leveling inscription, and the major glyphs were often under 1G. Perhaps that rush is over now.

JC is the current fad, and while I leveled it to min/max the stam on my pally, it's clear that I won't me making lots of money there anytime soon. Too many sellers, not enough buyers (and the posting prices for gems are too high).

I'm sitting at 30K, so other than cash to by 2 Greatness cards, not sure what else I would need cash for, except for BOE Ulduar epics.

But Tobold is right, you can't have 2 or 3 people win doing this. One or another will give up, or they'll destroy the market together.

I'm not skeptical that you can make the money but I am skeptical about the time you claim it takes. Are you actually timing yourself or just remembering "that took about an hour"? I do a lot of arbitrage and there's a lot of time shuffling bags, running from bank/mailbox/ah, sifting through auctions, making decisions because of market changes, mailing to alts with certain tradeskills, logging on/off between alts, etc. I've made it as fast as I can with addons but it's still a lot more time consuming then just clicking the buttons.

It sounds to me like you're taking the optimal case where you've done all the sunken time, have everything arranged and the market hasn't changed.

Re: Tobold - the fact that theoretically not everyone can make Gevlon-style returns is absolutely irrelevant. The point is that anyone who decides to can. That is what Gevlon is saying.

Gevlon is right about that, and he will continue to be right about it forever, unless we experience a paradigm shift where many, many more WoW players become "businessmen". If and when that happens, Gevlon is bound to notice, and blog about it - thus avoiding becoming wrong.

The reason Tobold prefers to argue hypothetical, unlikely paradigm shifts rather than the reality of what Gevlon is saying comes down, imho, to ideology. Many people interpret reality in light of their ideology, even though you should clearly interpret your ideology in light of reality. Gevlon at least somewhat corrected himself in "The fall of the goblinism" when he came to a new realization.

In some ways I agree with tobold. On my server Trollbane US there is a ton of competition on the AH. On somethings it comes to the point where on high end items the profit margin is so small that it isn't worth it to do anything. While there is competition it doesn't stop me from making money it slows me down in how much I can make. I only make 1.5-2k per week selling titansteel and dragon's eye. These are the only thing I know will sell for sure and most of the time I'm undercutting people. I've tried reselling items I find on the AH but often ran into the problem where I buy it for 100 gold as the lowest price then when I post it at 120 gold someone comes and undercuts me. A lot of competition is great for the consumer and right now my funds aren't at the point I would be comfortable at to spend and produce items for sale.

"So yeah, inscription cost me nothing to level, I made 2.5k over the setup, the cost was a couple of gold to level herbalism, and a couple of hours of my time."

it just pains me to see people talk like this.

of course it cost you something to level, opportunity cost. While with zero initial capital, gathering may be the most cost efficient way of gathering capital, it is by no means free. Remember, time is money friend.